1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to testing file elements in general, and more specifically the present invention relates to a method, system and article of manufacture for identifying a test specification to be used in testing of a file element.
2. Description of the Related Art
As communications protocols and message formats are standardized in the web community, it becomes increasingly possible and important to be able to describe the communications in some structured way. WSDL (Web Services Description Language) addresses this need by defining an XML grammar for describing network services as collections of communication endpoints capable of exchanging messages. WSDL service definitions provide documentation for distributed systems and serve as a recipe for automating the details involved in applications communication.
A WSDL document defines services as collections of network endpoints, or ports. In WSDL, the abstract definition of endpoints and messages is separated from their concrete network deployment or data format bindings. This allows the reuse of abstract definitions: messages, which are abstract descriptions of the data being exchanged, and port types which are abstract collections of operations. The concrete protocol and data format specifications for a particular port type constitute a reusable binding. A port is defined by associating a network address with a reusable binding, and a collection of ports define a service. Hence, a WSDL document uses the following elements in the definition of network services:    Types—a container for data type definitions using some type system (such as XSD).    Message—an abstract, typed definition of the data being communicated.    Operation—an abstract description of an action supported by the service.    Port Type—an abstract set of operations supported by one or more endpoints.    Binding—a concrete protocol and data format specification for a particular port type.    Port—a single endpoint defined as a combination of a binding and a network address.    Service—a collection of related endpoints.
It is important to observe that WSDL does not introduce a new type definition language. WSDL recognizes the need for rich type systems for describing message formats, and supports the XML Schemas specification (XSD) [W3C Working Draft “XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes”] as its canonical type system. However, since it is unreasonable to expect a single type system grammar to be used to describe all message formats present and future, WSDL allows using other type definition languages via extensibility. In addition, WSDL defines a common binding mechanism. This is used to attach a specific protocol or data format or structure to an abstract message, operation, or endpoint. It allows the reuse of abstract definitions.
File elements, associated with a file, are structured using WSDL syntax and semantics, and the file elements may be validated by a file validator. Over time, newer file elements (sometimes referred to as extensibility elements) are developed and accepted, and these newer file elements must be tested for validity. These new file elements may allow different technologies to provide bindings for abstract entities in WSDL (such as messages, operations and the like). Unfortunately, the file validator may not be able to completely test the validity of the newer file elements. Once new extensibility elements are introduced, the file validator is reconstructed and redistributed to users so that the newly constructed file validator may be able to validate these newer file elements. It is generally inconvenient to develop and reissue a newer version of the file validator each time new types of file elements are created or developed. Must time and money may be wasted in redevelopment costs associated with developing the newer file validator. Accordingly, a solution that addresses, at least in part, this and other shortcomings is desired.